


With Compassion

by andiownyousomuch



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Coming of Age, F/M, Gen, Loss, TG:re 33, hints of ayahina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-10 00:36:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5562019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andiownyousomuch/pseuds/andiownyousomuch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ayato and Hinami haven’t yet learned that stray dogs should behave like stray dogs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Compassion

**Author's Note:**

> Lines and inspiration from Sisters of Mercy's cover of [Gimme Shelter](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOl-diNxEys). If you don’t know it, give a try! It’s a great song and cover.
> 
> What to blame: TG’s 4-komas and haikus about Aogiri members. I'm not sorry.
> 
> Please, let me know what you think about this fic!

 

_“Love, sisters_

_It’s just a shot away_

_Shot away_

_Shot away_

_War, children_

_It’s just a kiss away”_

 

 

**2.**

In retrospect, he should have seen it coming.

Eto gestures to Tatara, going ahead, where lays the 20th ward, already trembling with blood and rain, dark clouds covering the district and the corpses; the storm is there, and soon he would join it.

But first – he has to deal with the inconvenience.

Tatara turns to the two younger ghouls in his way.

“What are you two doing here?”

Ayato is facing him, rabbit’s mask in hand, with Naki by his side.

“You’ll collect some guinea pigs, wont’t you? The more people you have to do it, the better. What’s the problem?”

The boy says the words as unconcerned as possible, but there’s urgency in his eyes, tension in the line of his jaw, blood running in his veins; and blood is thicker than water.

Tatara raises an eyebrow at Ayato.

“You want to save your sister,” he says, and it’s not a question. Under the scrutinizing gaze of Tatara, Ayato presses his lips into a thin and tight line, his lie tasting dry in his mouth. “Stay back. You’ll be only a nuisance.”

“Tatara, _I can-”_

“ _If,”_ Tatara says, “she is there, Ayato, then she’s already dead.”

Foreseeing his reaction, before Ayato could do anything more than gripping his teeth together, Tatara hits him in the neck, the boy’s body falling unconscious in his arms. Tatara takes him by the shirt, then, throwing him into Naki’s direction.

“Take _this kid_ back to headquarters.”

Naki nods, despite of crying something over his aniki and Ayato’s aneki.

Tatara turns to leave to where Noro is waiting for him, but before he walks away, a name escapes through Ayato’s lips:

_“-kaa”_

Unlike what Tatara was thinking, Ayato hadn’t grown that much, after all.

 

**3.**

 

“You brought a brat here.”

Eto isn’t surprised by Tatara’s sudden presence, or by the question underneath the statement.

She pouts, “You brought brats before, I wanted some too~”

“She can’t be of use,” he observes. From where they are, though far away, they can see a small frame shaking with sobs, next to the wall. “Are you, of all people, being emotional?”

Fueguchi, alone and only fourteen years old – Tatara sees the pattern. For an instant, Eto doesn’t quite meet his eyes; and then, a smile spreads across her face.

“Tatara-san, always so harsh,” she complains, hands over her chest, feigning hurt in her voice. “But you’re wrong about that. She’s nothing like me.”

Eto’s eyes are locked on the figure approaching Hinami, talking to her – in a rough, albeit clumsy way, like someone of the same age would.

And, for the first time ever since Hinami joined Aogiri, Eto sees her smiling.

“She’s someone who was loved.”

 

**4.**

 

 “You know, Tatara-san,” Eto starts, in that voice she uses to read to him a piece of her writing. “Once, I told Hina-chan: ‘Your onii-chan is someone who wants to be loved’. And these days, I asked her if she didn’t regret joining us.”

The last phrase catches Tatara’s attention, making his gaze move from the cityscapes before them to her small form, beside him. “Guess what she answered me?”

Eto’s smiling and Tatara knows that, despite of all the bandages; and maybe this was due to the years they’ve spent together. But even after all this time, it’s still hard to know what she’s thinking.

Like her books, Eto’s difficult to read.

“She thanked me. Said she is a little bit stronger, that she could understand her onii-chan better now, because, in a way… I reminded her of her onii-chan. When I asked her why that is, she said: ‘Because sometimes I wonder, Eto-san, if you are someone who wanted to be loved too’.”

Eto clasps her hands together, laughing.

“Isn’t she _cute_? After everything that I did, and after everything I make _her_ did, she still told me something like that… Really, these kids nowadays~”

Tatara only sighs, as he sees, down there, through the rooftop window, Fueguchi and Ayato sitting close to each other, hands almost touching, talking in small voices.

“That’s a trouble,” is all he says.

 

**5.**

 

As soon as he hears the news about the auction, Tatara silently waits. Ayato stands before him, as expected, and a look at the younger ghoul suffices:

There’s only a name that Ayato brings in his mouth, with a request between his empty hands.

There’s also only an answer:

Like their own flesh, regenerating, they would replace the replacement, once more.

But Ayato had questions grown along with his bones. He asks, fists closed, defiant eyes:

_“Yamori… Bin… All those who died… Is everyone in Aogiri just replaceable pieces to you?”_

The ghoul holds the other’s gaze.

As Tatara answers him, he sees a flash of his own rage in Ayato’s eyes, in another life, another ghoul, away from his home country, coming to this wasteland, following the root of his hatred – angry, hungry to the point of eating his own heart.

 

**1.**

 

There are things you must do to survive.

 


End file.
